My Soul Book Part 6 – Page 5

This page (part 6 out of 15) is an extremely important message I wanted to send to myself.
After stretching myself, trying to juggle with everything and always adding loads to myself, to the point of near burnout and deteriorating my health, especially in the last few months, I had to stop and reconsider everything in my life to try and get some balance and give myself the time to breathe properly (literally) and build myself back up little by little.

“I need to say NO to unimportant things so that I can say YES to what really MATTERS”. We are all guilty of that, aren’t we? We feel it’s our duty, as workers, mums, and so many other roles, to do everything that’s thrown at us. But unfortunately, the truth is, you can’t, physically, mentally, emotionally. There is a point where it all gets too much.

My Process for This Page

I started with a page from a spiral notebook where I did trial drawings/scribbles when I received my Gallery neon oil pastels a few months ago. the pastels were smudged for a soft effect ( I was testing their smudge power, and it’s pretty good!)
I selected the part that I liked best and cut it to size.
I glued it on my page using Mod Podge. I didn’t cover the top of the paper as I usually do to seal it, because I didn’t want the texture to be altered. I wanted to keep it smooth and matte.
I glued pieces of gessoed book pages (leftovers from an old project) on some parts of my page.

After drying my page thoroughly, I used the rest of the circle from my trimmed notebook page, cut it out in half to have 2 quarters and glued them on 2 corners of my project to add harmony. The multicoloured circle is no longer standing out, but part of the whole page. Using repetition on your page will always create unity between all the elements.
I covered them with Mod Podge to seal them properly and dried them with a hairdryer.

Next I used a soft mop brush with water ans watercolour in black, and covered my page around the neon oil pastel drawings to make the colours stand out.
Where Mod Podge was applied, the intensity of the pigment weakens, which gives a really nice grungy and messy look. The glue acted as a resist to the watercolour.
As I dried it with the hairdryer, the water moved around and created multi-directional drips on some of the neon colours.Another happy accident…

I used a 10x7cm piece of white cardstock (I made a whole stock of these with printer cardstock paper a while ago, just in case) and cut it in half to have 2.
I used my Classics set of Prima watercolours and loosely applied 3 different colours on each card.
After hair-drying them, I used my big YES/NO stamps and stamped one word on each card with my ink pad. I love Archival ink as it is waterproof after it’s dry, so you can go over with wet medium and it won’t smudge everywhere.

I used a rounded corner punch to round the corners of my 2 cards. I then used my ink pad the ink around the edges.

I auditioned my cards on the page, and when I was happy with the placement, I used a dark blue Sharpie pen (I’ve lost all my black ones! I swear they have legs!!) to write the rest of my wise words I want to remember.

I then glued my cards with Mod Podge and used an old plastic card to smooth them so they’re glued neatly.
Next I added some glitter on the cards with my beloved Decopatch glitter glue. It really makes them stand out (can’t beat glitter!)

I liked the inked edges of the cards but I thought they weren’t standing out enough, so I used my black watercolour pencil from my Prima Classics set, dipped it in water to activate the pigment, and roughly outlined my cards.
I also used it to write over the word MATTER to make it stand out more, and on the edges of my page.